How AWS Lambda Simplifies Serverless Implementations

Serverless architecture is the most flexible way to build modern mobile applications. You can build, deploy, and run applications without thinking about the servers. The serverless framework eliminates the need to maintain your own infrastructure, provisioning, patching, or operational maintenance.

With the serverless computing, you need to create a function, store it in the cloud, and call a URL when you want to execute the program. No need for any server. Someone else will manage the server for you along with your app scalability, security and agility requirements.

Serverless is very convenient when it comes to pricing. You pay for requests rather than the server. Traditionally, businesses rent Virtual Private Network (VPN) on a monthly basis to run applications. But with serverless architecture, you pay for the resources you use. You also get high built-in availability, flexible scaling, and fault tolerance with serverless.

AWS Lambda is the most popular tool that allows you to create serverless functions using Java, Go, PowerShell, Node.js, C#, Python, and Ruby.

Two features of Lambda that make serverless development even easier:

Lambda Layers allow you to manage code and data in a central location and share them across multiple functions. No need to package and deploy codes with all the functions that you create. Use Lambda Layer to create and upload all components in a ZIP file. When you invoke any function, layers will be installed in /opt. The order of the layers is important, so do take care of it during layer creation.

• Use Lambda Layer to separate concerns between dependencies and business logic
• Use it for creating smaller function codes
• Speed up deployments

Lambda Runtime API is a simple interface for developing your functions. You can use it to create custom runtimes for creating or updating functions. A function must include bootstrap (an executable file) in its code or layer. This bootstrap helps to communicate between the Lambda environment and code data. The bootstrap uses an HTTP-based interface to get event payloads and then return back the answers from the function. You can manage and create your own runtimes using C++ and Rust.

How to Build a Serverless Framework for Web App using AWS Lambda

For example, you need to build and host a web app. So for that, you need AWS services - AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon S3, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Cognito.

• Host and store your web app's HTML, CSS, images, JavaScript files and data in Amazon S3.
• Use Amazon Cognito to manage users and authentication functions.
• Now it's time to create a serverless backend process. First, create an Amazon DynamoDb table. Enter the table name and partition key. Select String for the key type and choose Create. Scroll to the bottom of the table and note down ARN number.
• Create a new IAM role in your AWS Management Console. Select Lambda for the role type and give Permissions. You will need ARN of the table while creating policy at this stage.
• Create Lambda function and set custom runtime.
• JavaScript executed in the browser sends and receives data from your backend API built using Lambda and API Gateway.
• Once your functions are executed, you must clean up spaces to avoid unwanted charges. Delete S3 bucket, delete pool in Cognito, delete IAM role and Rest API. And finally, delete your log group from CloudWatch.

Conclusion

Serverler frameworks are gaining traction as organizations are looking to cut costs and increase efficiency. Serverless computing dynamically allocates resources when you need it and gives you the ability to quickly scale without requiring any infrastructure. Serverless computing can be used for developing and deploying web and mobile applications and data processing. With AWS Lambda's layer and runtime API services, developing your own serverless architecture for apps and websites become easier. If you require expertise to get started with AWS Lambda for serverless implementations, then our AWS consultants can help you to cut through the hype, save money and increase efficiency.